1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to computer software and, more particularly, to generating and reading data glyphs and other two dimensional barcodes.
2. Description of Related Art
Data glyphs and barcodes are used extensively in industry for embedding information within printed documents, soft documents, and on products. These glyphs and barcodes can be scanned to retrieve a variety of information. For example, a document may be encoded with a data glyph or barcode which, when read by a computer, identifies the location at which a soft copy of the document may be retrieved, thereby allowing a user to retrieve and edit the document. Without the barcode or data glyph, the location at which a soft copy of a document is stored may be unknowable in an environment in which thousands of documents are created and stored.
Another area in which data glyphs and barcodes are utilized which may be more familiar to most people is on products available for purchase in various stores. Each product is labeled with, for example, a bar code which identifies the product and allows the store to associate a price with the product. Thus, when the store scans the product, the price is automatically entered into the cash register.
One problem with many existing glyphs and/or barcodes is that they are based on the binary or decimal numeric systems. This limits the amount of data that can be stored in a glyph or barcode per unit area of glyph or barcode. Because barcodes and glyphs are being used in more and more applications to store larger amounts of data, it would be desirable to have a glyph that can store a greater amount of data per unit area than is possible with existing glyphs.